TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine welcomes the Class of 2024
The 60 students who officially became the Class of 2024 recently at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine competed with more than 4,300 candidates to win those prized spots. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, applications for the third class already are exceeding expectations.
When the Fort Worth M.D. school opened up applications for the third class, the Office of Admissions & Enrollment Services received more than 1,700 submissions on the first day. That number is about three times higher than the first day of application submissions for its inaugural class of medical students in 2019 when they received more than 600 applications on the first day.
“It’s a testament to all the hard work we are doing collectively as a school of medicine. Our innovative curriculum makes us a unique program offering for individuals who desire to become physicians,” said Carlos Tapia, executive director of Admissions & Enrollment Operations at the TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine.
The medical students in the Class of 2024 are from 18 different states within the United States, with 38 percent of them from Texas. Fifty-Five percent are male and 45 percent are women. The new students come to the Fort Worth M.D. school from 45 different undergraduate higher education institutions.
“This class definitely has resiliency,” Tapia said. “We learned that we have a lot of folks that have made it their purpose to become a physician and attend medical school despite the COVID-19 pandemic. They also are dynamic in their personal hobbies. We have a surfer, we have artists and competitive athletes, so they will fit in with the rest of our student body really well.”
The medical school’s unique private-public partnership between Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center will prepare students to be compassionate physicians, excellent caregivers and prepared to meet the challenges of the rapid advances in medicine.
The curriculum is designed to transform medical education. It does this in several ways by incorporating communications training throughout the entire curriculum, pairing students with patients and physicians from their first day in a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship, providing world-class simulation and technology and encouraging students to be lifelong learners capable of critical inquiry and medical information literacy through their scholarly thesis and pursuit.
Among the new students there is one triple major, 36 undergraduate areas of study and eight areas of graduate studies. Eighty-eight percent of the class self-identifies with one or more of the three school-defined diversity domains, which is a 30 percent increase from the first admission cycle.
“From the onset of our medical school, we challenged ourselves to recruit a diverse class of students that reflects the community they will serve,” Tapia said. “The increase in overall school of medicine diversity speaks to the commitment we have to our Fort Worth community and beyond.”
Here’s more about the Class of 2024:
- 55 percent male, 45 percent female
- Average age of students is 24.
- 100 percent have bachelor’s degrees from 45 higher education institutions.
- 20 percent (12 students) have graduate degrees.
- 38 percent of the Class of 2024 is from Texas. The other states represented are: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
- Average MCAT Score: 509
- Overall Average GPA: 3.67
- 88 percent of the class self-identifies with one or more of the three school-defined diversity
domains:
- Race/Ethnicity: 24 percent of the class self-identifies as Black/African-American or Hispanic/Latino
- 20 percent of the class identifies with LGBTQ+ community
- Socio-Economic: 56 percent of the class represents the first-generation to attend college, attended community college, worked to support the family before the age of 18 or graduated from a rural-designated high school.
The medical students were welcomed into the Fort Worth M.D. School during Welcome Week with activities from July 6-10. The students began their first classes on July 13.